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Casper and the Cookies find comfort in being a 'Dingbat'

Jason NeSmith munched on chocolate-covered ginger nibs and recalled the first time he looked up the word dingbat in the dictionary. He found three definitions. A dingbat is: a decorative thing; something stupid that can be tossed aside; and something “you can chuck at someone,” said the singer/guitarist known to many as Casper Fandango, and the front man for long-running power pop quartet Casper and the Cookies.

“That’s kind of how we feel sometimes,” NeSmith said. “As artists that is kind of how we all feel. We want to be taken seriously, but people think of us as some light-hearted pop band, but you know, we are. But we also want to sing about space, and time, and death and physics, and make people really (angry). But we aren’t very convincing of it.”

Hence “Dingbats” — the title of Casper and the Cookies’ latest record, officially released this weekend with a show at Caledonia Lounge.

Kay Stanton, bassist in Casper and the Cookies and NeSmith’s off-stage partner, nodded, sitting across from NeSmith in the couple’s living room. But, she admitted, “I don’t even know what a dingbat is at this point.”

The point of “Dingbats” isn’t to make sense or be defined. At its essence, the record purposefully ignores genre — from skippy punk to thoughtful prog rock to rollicking new wave. On their latest collection, NeSmith, Stanton and fellow Cookies Gregory Sanders (drums) and AJ Griffin (background vocals and keyboards) created a blended world of fantasy and real-life, an extension of some advice NeSmith once received to “rewrite events as you wished they would have happened.”

“This whole record is about evolution and the beginning of life versus the end of life,” said Stanton.

Stanton and NeSmith consider the record a mix of “body music and mind music.”

One standout track, “Lemon Horses”, tells the story of the disillusioned rock-n-roll lifestyle with an almost hip-hop braggadocio. The song offers a nitty-gritty version of the glamorized profession that NeSmith and Stanton have been plugging away at for years. After almost two decades of rock and roll, it’s dedication and passion that keeps the Cookies going.

“We invest our own money in the band,” said NeSmith. “We go for broke. It’s fine if we don’t become famous, almost all of our favorites never really did.”

But on “Improvvisamente Ardito” the band sounds as famous as the Who. Its hauntingly catchy chorus, the words “One More Time” repeated, begs for repeated listens. “Improvvisamente Ardito” also showcases the record’s rhythmic focus.

“Our songs on this record are a little more rhythmic, a little more jarring, but not so that anyone would notice or actually be ... jarred,” joked NeSmith.

There’s plenty on “Dingbats” to pleasantly jar a listener: the punk-sounding vocals from Stanton on “Jennifer’s House” and the layered, building space ballad “When the Moon Was in Command” leans heavy on a Flaming Lips vibe.

Looking at the daunting wall of records in their living room, ordered by genre, then alphabetically, then chronologically, it’s pretty clear why Casper & the Cookies traffic is such diverse rock. Their list of idols and inspirations is vast and historic.

“I wish someone would just tell us what we are,” said Stanton.

“But then they do, and then we just disagree with them,” joked NeSmith.